Who: Zane and Paige When: Day 3, 11:21pm Where: Paige's Room
He was soaked straight to the bone, though the heavy rain had let up just before he'd left the house with the others. He made his way through the streets, darting from one hiding place to another, feeling utterly vulnerable without his gun: that had not been a smart idea, he'd chided to himself the whole way back to the hotel, to leave it with the others and himself unprotected. He wondered what had come over him to cause him to surrender the one thing that had kept him alive so far.
Finally he arrived back safe and sound despite the massive amounts of monsters that looked to be congregating in the streets, only his nerves a little worse for the wear. He shook the drops of rain that had continued to sprinkle down from the sky out of his hair and headed back to the fourth floor. First things first, check on Paige, like he'd said he was going to do when he left. Zane walked his hallway, remembering the girl had mentioned her room that morning and that he'd thought to himself it was only a few doors down from his own. He chose a door and knocked, waiting, and when he heard nothing on the other side, moved to the next door and knocked again. He wasn't sure what the plan would be if she hadn't made it back.
After a long pause, the lock clicked in the frame and the door was opened. Paige stood, guitar strap on her shoulder and instrument under her arm, a smile touching her lips at the sight of the visitor. Earlier that day, when she'd left them in the street, she'd assumed without question the house they were headed for would be close. Naturally one assumption led to the next, and she’d been certain they’d return long before nightfall. However, an hour before sunset, she‘d started to worry they’d run into trouble.
It was only on her second circle of the hotel that she’d reminded herself they had two guns and at least one person who knew how to use one. Even she and Amberlee had been able to take down a monster with no gun training what-so-ever, which left Paige to wonder if they’d simply forgotten to let her know they’d returned. She couldn’t be sure, however, because she didn’t know which rooms the two men had taken as their own. And, without much other option, she’d been forced to simply return to her own room.
"You boys took your time," she told him, unsure if that was true of them returning or only of them letting her know they had. "Is everyone okay or have you just not changed yet?" His clothes were soaked, she'd noticed right away. Yet, when he'd mentioned he had no other clothes earlier that day, she thought the latter was an option. She stepped aside then, walking deeper into the room and expecting Zane to follow. A suitcase was pulled from the corner and, after pushing her guitar around to her back, she pulled it up onto the spare bed for him. "This is the suitcase I told you about."
"Terry is still there with the rest of them," he told her, glancing over her guitar. "I came back on my own to make sure you made it back." True as it was, that hadn't been the only reason, just the one he was admitting out loud. He stepped inside her room, closing the door behind himself and following her over to the suitcase. Strange how exciting a suitcase full of clean clothes he never would have shopped for himself could be; but his outfit was on its last leg. After being torn by glass shards and suffering three days of sweat, his own blood, rain, and the blood of people three days gone from the world, Zane was about ready to walk around in anything else.
He shifted through the contents: socks, underwear, a few magazines, an ipod, and lots of clothes. Zane grabbed a pair of jeans, peering at the size on the tag. They would fit. They weren't his personal style but they would fit so he didn't much care about that. The time for being picky was far past. He ducked into the bathroom, stripping out of his clothes and pulling on the fresh, clean pair of jeans. He then took a long look at himself in the mirror before splashing water over face, washing it. He wondered how many days they would have where even turning on a faucet would work. And then what? Carting around bottles of water?
Paige found herself simply staring at Zane for a moment. He'd risked his own neck to ensure hers was okay? When, if it hadn't been, there wouldn't have been all that much he could have done about it hours after she'd left his company. Despite the thought, she couldn’t help but feel touched by the gesture. "Thanks," she said softly, unsure what else she could possibly say to it. "I made it back okay. About two hours late, but okay."
While Zane dug through the clothes, she sat down on the end of her own bed. Her guitar was shifted back into her hands and she went back to what she’d been doing moments before he arrived: working on a song she’d started before the band had broken up. The volume was so low, however, that she doubted he would have been able to hear it after he moved into the bathroom. "Are they worth stealing?" she called about the jeans once she heard the tap running.
"So you‘re a pretty good shot," she said a few moments later. "Would you mind showing me sometime? I got a gun on the way here but--" A smile curled the corners of her lips. "--I‘d probably end up shooting everything except what I was trying to hit."
"Better than what I was wearing." Zane emerged from the bathroom and dumped the soaked clothes in a small pile on the floor before digging through the suitcase again in search of a shirt. Nothing was much his style, which tended to dwell on the expensive, button-up end of the fashion spectrum, but as they say beggars can't be choosers. He pulled out a hot pink t-shirt with a logo on it, raised a brow, and threw it over near where Paige was sitting. That was definitely in the no pile, beggar or not. Finally he found just a plain black shirt and pulled it on. Already he felt better just having clean clothes.
"Yes, I can teach you to shoot. The more people who can shoot those things, the better. What kind of gun do you have?" Hopefully a handgun, he thought, which he actually knew how to shoot. He reached back into his own waistband automatically only to remember his own was gone. He needed to go get his other one, just in case.
She raised an eyebrow at the pile of wet clothes he dumped before her gaze moved to him. "You’re taking those with you, right?" She wasn’t anyone’s maid and, while she didn’t think anyone could be rude enough to dump their dirty clothes in someone else’s room, she didn’t know Zane or his intentions.
Paige smirked at the pink shirt. "I thought real men wore pink," she joked as it sailed through the air and back to him. She was glad to see the suitcase had been some help. There had to be a lot of clothes within the hotel walls. All second hand, of course, but it’d come in handy. Even she had been forced to leave over half her clothes in an alleyway, and it was only due to persistence that she’d managed to keep the ones she’d shoved into her carry-on bag. "I might go and collect all the suitcases in the hotel later. Take them down to the laundry and sort them into piles," she thought out loud. "It’s going to be hard keeping busy in this place." Mundane little things like setting up a stockpile of clothing would probably keep her from going insane.
Abandoning her guitar to the floor on the far side of her bed, she went into the front pocket of her bag to remove the 9mm. "You tell me," she said, carefully holding it out to him. The safety was and clicked it on but she still wasn’t sure about handling guns.
"I can clean up after myself, yes. I don't want to throw them in with the rest of the clean clothes, " Zane said as he raised a brow and glanced down at the sopping pile. He looked up again just in time to see the pink shirt flying back toward him. He left it where it landed, ignoring it. "Planning on starting your own dry cleaning business then?" He smirked, though she had a point about keeping busy. Already he felt like there wasn't enough for him to do without his studies, and he would just end up pacing around the empty halls.
He watched her as she went to her bag to dig out her gun, taking it as it was offered. He looked it over briefly and then handed it back. "I can teach you to shoot that. Do you have any spare ammo?" They would need some in order for her to practice, though he figured at some point ammunition could become a scare commodity. He turned his attention back to the suitcase, digging deeper to see what other treasures it held. "I found something in here," he announced, crouching down to dig a large, square object out from under the clothes, along with two controllers. Considering the suitcase had been in her room, he figured she had first call on anything inside.
"That's a rare quality, you know? A man who cleans up after himself." After living in close quarters with three of them for the last five years, she well knew how often chip packets, empty beer bottles, and white powder had covered the coffee tables of their hotel rooms. Though they had often relied on room service to clean up after them, which she doubted Zane had been provided the luxury of. Paige grinned in a silent laugh at his comment about dry-cleaning. "I never said I was going to wash anything. Besides, it means I get to find all the stuff worth keeping." It was a happy bonus because, even if it hadn't been the case, she would have sorted out the clothes regardless.
When the gun was passed back, she set it down on top of the magazines she'd scavenged on her bedside table. "Yeah, I got a couple of boxes." Just the ammo that had been under the gun when she'd grabbed it from the case. Paige stood from her bed as the silver box was pulled from the suitcase. "Oh sweet!" A grin broke over her face as she turned it toward her. While she’d never seen a Playstation 3 Laptop before, the obvious logo and the controllers told her what it was. And once she figured out how to lift the screen up from the base she realised they didn’t even need to hunt down a television. "Are there any games in there?" It didn’t matter what there was to play. It would come in very handy to pass the time when she was too tired to do much of anything but still couldn’t sleep.
"What is it?" Zane asked, as he watched the girl's face light up. He bent into the bag to search through it, pulling out a case which contained several discs. He handed them to her and then stuffed his old, wet clothes into one of the empty suitcase pockets. Really, the clothes were torn up enough there was no point to keeping them but he couldn't throw away one of the last vestiges of his old life that he had left.
"Playstation," she replied simply. "Yes!" she added happily as he handed her the case of games. Paige didn't waste any time turning it on, pleased to find it ran on battery, and then plugging it in, so it didn't run out in the middle of a game. She threw the second controller to Zane, flashed a grin, and hopped onto her bed cross-legged. While she had expected him to go straight back to his room after he'd found the clothes, not even change in front of her (not that she was complaining), she couldn't see how anyone could pass up the chance to have some fun after how depressing the last few days had been. She opened the game case and began looking through them for a two player game. "Hmmm shoot-em-up, racing, or co-op party?" She looked up to him. "I'm voting for the shoot-em-up." Because while she couldn't shoot a gun in real life, she could kick arse when it came to console games.
Zane caught the controller as it was thrown to him, more out of reflexes than anything else. He glanced down at it and then looked at the girl as she settled herself in front of the game. He walked over to her bed, his arms crossed, the controller still hanging from his fingers. He'd played video games a few times before, though not for some time. He'd simply been too busy with school and saw no real point to them. They didn't teach a person anything or improve any skills, though some had argued with him about them improving hand-eye coordination. Zane felt his ability to kill a monster spoke well enough for his hand-eye coordination. "Hmm," Zane grunted, looking over his shoulder at her door. He should go back to his own room, but what was there? Silence, which he didn't mind, and his own thoughts, which seemed to do little more than circle over one another until he felt dizzy.
He glanced across the room, eyes landing on a bottle of whiskey on her bed. Well, there was a second or maybe third reason to stay awhile, he thought to himself. Zane took a seat next to her on the bed. "I'll stay for a game if you share that," he told her, nodding to the bottle. He turned then to look her face over slowly--all dark hair and green eyes. "But I should warn you, I take competition very seriously." As though he ever took anything less than seriously.
Paige had thought, for a moment, she was about to be left on her own, the meaning of his grunt and glance to the door not lost on her. It wouldn’t have bothered her much, in truth. She wasn’t one of those girls who needed or sought company, simply one that could appreciate it when it was offered. That and, if she’d really wanted to play someone, there had to be at least one survivor in the hotel who would want to play.
Still, when Zane moved to sit down, Paige smiled to him. "Help yourself," she said about the whiskey. "And I’d be worried if you didn’t take getting your ass kicked by a girl seriously," she added nonchalant. Given he hadn’t voiced a preference or a dislike of shoot-em-ups, that was what she put in. A few moments were spent getting past the title screen and the initial video, and then the screen split in two as the game got underway. "What’d you do before this?" she asked after a while of getting used to the controls.
At her trash talk he raised a brow and glanced over at her, a little surprised, before turning back to the screen. He stared, trying to find an appropriate comeback, which seemed to elude him. It was one thing to vie for the highest grade in one of his medical classes, or talk shit with a few guys at target practice, but girls just hadn't piped up that way to him often. "I'm just worried about you crying when I'm done with you," he finally returned, a few beats too slow.
He watched as the game started up, the room filling with the sound of gunfire and radio talk. He tested the controls and then began trying to get the hang of the game. "Years and years of school, mostly," he answered, which was honest although vague. "You?"
Paige tried to keep the corners of her lips from curling up at his trash talk… and failed miserably. She knew his comment was meant to be about the game, but her mind couldn‘t help but go elsewhere. "No one’s that bad in bed," she said laughing. "Give yourself some credit." There was a pause as she sobered, then she added more sincerely, "I hope your game is better than your banter."
"You were still in school?" she asked, surprised. He’d looked older than her, which made her wonder if he‘d just failed a lot or if he was studying something impressive. "What were you studying?"
With the return of the question, Paige hesitated a little. She wasn’t about to come straight out with the truth. Not when they were getting along just fine while he thought she had been a nobody. In her experience, once people knew about her job things tended to change. Although that had been the past. It wasn't as if she could get them into concerts or provide them an introduction to other famous people any longer. All the same, she decided to stick with what was safe. "I’d actually just lost my job. About two weeks ago now. One of my colleagues got strung out on drugs and overdosed, and that was it for the rest of us." She lifted one shoulder in a shrug. "So, nothing," she said in final answer to his question.
At the 'bad in bed' comment the girl received a sharp look from Zane, though there was a hint of amusement on his face as well. "I'd be happy to prove myself to you anytime, Sexy," he told her, turning back to the game. It was true if the three things were put in hierarchical order his banter would have been at the bottom, with his game skills somewhere in the middle based on how the score was looking so far. He had utmost confidence in the other though.
"I studied one thing, finished, and then I started to study another. My education was interrupted, however." He glanced at her and then back to the screen as what appeared to be a grenade detonated. Zane cursed under his breath. "I'm not sharing what I studied at this point," he told her. "I don't want every Tom, Dick, and Mary in Apocalypse Inn running to me when they have a small problem. So, until my education is really needed, in a life or death situation, I'm keeping it to myself." And that was that. If someone was bleeding to death or got themselves shot by someone else or got really sick, something along those lines, he would step in, but until then no way. He'd left his medical degree and license behind for several reasons.
Zane smirked. "You're being vague as well I see." Considering she had answered her question about as thoroughly as he had. He had to wonder, however, what sort of job required more than one person where the loss of that person meant the loss of the job. There couldn't have been many options out there. "Well, at least you have one less thing to miss," he commented as he furrowed his brows and punched at the buttons. "What do you think you'll miss first?" he asked then. He'd been wondering himself what small things about civilized society he would want back the most.
You and fifty thousand other guys, Paige thought to herself. Although, she realised a second afterward, those fifty thousand other guys -or male fans- were probably all dead now, depending how far the death had spread. She shook her head briefly at herself, as if shaking away the thought. "For that to happen I’d have to give you a chance. So far--" A massive fireball appeared on Paige’s screen while Zane’s screen went white. A second later, the score card came up and declared Paige the winner of the first round. Though only just. "--you’re all promises and no delivery."
"I’ll remember to keep you round for all my future life and death situations then." She smirked to him. There really weren‘t that many things you could study at school which were of help in life and death situations. She might have guessed he‘d had military training, yet it didn‘t seem to fit the bit about people coming to him with small problems. It didn‘t really matter to Paige though. She‘d just been making conversation and, if he wasn‘t comfortable telling her something, she could respect his wishes. It wasn‘t as if she was willing to be an open book either. "Can I ask why you didn’t make a career out of the first thing, or is that confidential too?"
"Maybe you’ll find out one day." She was sure someone would eventually recognize her and inform him. A couple of people already had recognized her, after all. "But I already miss it. A lot." It had been hard to take all the changes that had occurred over the past three weeks, and she'd been missing it long before this nightmare had begun. When he posed his question, she assumed he must mean family and friends aside because it was such an obvious answer. "Probably just walking down the street without having to watch my footing." Or just being able to walk down the street without looking around for monsters. "Maybe soft gummy bears too," she said, keeping the topic light. "What about you?" She pressed pause without warning, grabbed the bottle of whiskey, and took a swig of the dark liquid before handing it to Zane. When she was sure he was ready again, she unpaused the game to continue.
"I'll have to remedy that," Zane commented, brow raised as the game announced that he had lost. He didn't enjoy losing and planned to redeem himself, so he looked at Paige waiting for the next game to start, unless she kicked him out first. "I didn't make a career out of the first thing," he continued, "because I suddenly realized that my whole life had been laid out for me and it wasn't what I wanted." His father had pushed and pushed him into being a surgeon, as he was, and Zane had never had enough time for the air to clear so he could think about what he wanted for himself, until his medical degree was well in hand and a hard look in the mirror changed everything.
Zane took the offered bottle of whiskey, taking a swallow. "Gummy bears, huh?" he eyed her a moment, amused. It was a funny little thing to miss and in his mind's eye he could see the whole rack of them he'd stared at for a whole night at the convenience store. "I'm going to miss hot showers." Which he'd already thought about enough to take long ones when he had the opportunity. Soon enough they be forced to bath in cold water or not at all. "And cooking. Eating out of cans is less than appealing." Soon all the fruits and vegetables would be gone, unless someone with knowledge started a garden, and from what he could tell the animals were already less than edible. His future nutrition seemed to lay in crackers and beans. "And music."
This time Zane poured all his concentration into the game, eyes locked on the screen, his face pulled into a permanent scowl. As the gunfire and grenades intensified the lights in Paige's room began to dim and flared up like the electricity or the bulbs were struggling somehow.
Paige glanced to him when he said his life had been laid out for him. There were few people in a person’s life that could do that sort of thing and get someone to stick with it for a long time. Most of them were parental figures of some sort. "I had the opposite problem. My parental unit wanted me to do pretty much anything other than what I’d picked." It wasn’t because her mother was trying to be mean, but because she’d worried Paige might not make it in the music industry and end up disappointed. Even when the band got signed, she’d worried it might disappear one day and Paige would have nothing to fall back on. Though she’d never imagined it would happen, it turned out her mom had been right about it falling apart. If the end of the world hadn’t happened, aside from living off royalties, she had no idea what she would have done with her life. Found another band, perhaps, or written for bands that couldn’t write for themselves.
While it had crossed Paige’s mind before, she hadn’t actually thought about all the ramifications of the power going out. Things such as not having hot food anymore, for instance. She guessed they could cook everything in camping style. Yet, in a modern city, it removed pretty much every option that involved an oven. "I might have to make my favourite foods before it becomes impossible," she thought out loud. A small smile touched her lips when he mentioned music. That seemed to be a popular thing to miss, and something Paige loved more than anything else in the world. “What were your favourite bands?” She thought you could tell a lot about a person by the music they listened to, because in most cases, people listened to the music they identified with.
As the lights dimmed, murky green eyes were drawn upward and her brows furrowed slightly. At the same time, an AI bot came out of nowhere and killed her. She looked back to the screen and frowned, realising she’d respawned in an unfavourable location. "Looks like the power is already on its last legs." Which, she supposed, made sense. All it would take was the right power lines to get torn down by the monsters and they’d be living in the dark.
"Hmm," was all Zane managed, though his mind added the other clue to the puzzle: a career that required several people, all of whom needed to work to keep the career, and that was not on the parentally approved list. There were a few things, at least, he could surmise Paige had not been doing. He'd figure it out eventually. "My favorite bands were"--a depressing past tense thought--"mostly rock groups." Since the only time he really had to listen to music was when he was running or at the gym and slow, soft tunes wouldn't cut it there. "I liked [insert band names here when you're feeling clever enough to think of a few], Fallen Grace, Disturbed, Nirvana... anything loud and angry."
Zane glanced up at the lights just as Paige commented. He'd known they were dimming, not because his vision changed but because he could feel the energy surges. "It's me," he told her, his voice flat. He was less than thrilled not only about his new found power, but more so about his inability to control it. Zane preferred always to have control. "I can absorb light now, apparently." He glanced over at Paige before turning his attention back to the screen, firing a killing shot her way and taking the lead. He flashed her a cocky smile, though it disappeared almost as quickly as it had come. "Have you been able to do anything strange recently?"
It was hard to keep the amusement from touching her expression as he mentioned her band, and Paige was glad he had the game to distract him. Was he serious? For a moment, she wondered if he had recognized her all along and was toying with her. But something about the way the conversation had flowed made her think he genuinely had no clue. She straightened her face before glancing to him. "Nirvana is a must for any collection. One of my best friends had a real thing for the blonde girl in Fallen Grace," she commented. "He would have married her given the chance." There was a slight pause. "Did you have a favourite song of theirs?"
Again she died in the game, distracted once more by Zane's light show. Or, rather, his admitting to being the cause of it. She narrowed his eyes at his smile and looked back to the game. He was in the lead and she was determined to at least close the points gap before the end of the round. "No, not me. One of the guys I met before I got here could teleport though." She shrugged a single shoulder. "How did you figure out you were the cause of it?" she asked about his power. She didn't think, if she walked into a room and the lights flickered, she'd ever have believed she was the cause of something like that. Her mind would have gone to power surges and bad wiring.
"Who hasn't," Zane commented about the blonde girl in Fallen Grace. He'd caught a few of their music videos before and neither girl in the band would disappoint. "I wouldn't marry her though." Or anyone, for that matter, though that was neither here nor there. "Favorite song..." Zane thought it over while he watched the game screen. He liked most of their music, but there were some songs that he listened to more often than others, songs that just resonated with him. Music could be as cathartic as a cigarette or a drink without the risk. "I've probably listened to 'Nowhere to Run" the most." He glanced over at Paige. "Did you listen to them?"
"Teleport?" Zane raised a brow and nearly got himself blown up on screen, having lost his concentration for a moment. Mind reading, senses, and emotions were one thing but teleporting now too? He wondered exactly what powers everyone in the building had. "I figured it out when the lights kept dimming when I got pissed off," he told the girl. Emotions seemed to have an affect on what he could do, which made him even more reluctant to acknowledge them. "It appears I absorb energy or something; I feel like a charged battery." Speaking of which... He paused the game and took another swallow of the whiskey, standing and pacing between the beds, his body feeling like it was practically vibrating with energy. He clenched his jaw, the muscle there twitching. "This is fucking annoying," he growled, turning to walk the other way across her room.
His comment about everyone having a thing for Alison only caught him a small smile. Though she was glad he wasn’t so taken with the blonde that he’d have wanted to marry her. She thought about asking why not, but decided better of it. "Enough that I can play all their songs by ear," she replied about listening to them. She laughed then, quietly and to herself, thinking this was the strangest conversation she’d ever had about her band. "Sad song choice," she added. Though none of the songs were bright and sunny, that one was one of the sadder ones she'd written. It simply left her wondering if someone had betrayed him, and he liked the song because he identified with it, or if there was some other reason he‘d listened to it over the others. Though Paige stopped herself there. People tried to psychoanalyse her with her lyrics sometimes and it had always bothered her. Especially since most people had no clue what she’d been writing about.
Paige began to laugh when Zane said the lights were connected to his anger. "You really don’t like getting beaten by a girl, huh?" Not that she was winning this round, and she‘d blame the distractions for it, but the light show had started straight after she'd won the last. As the game was paused, Paige looked up to see him start to pace. She leaned off the bed and pushed her guitar under it, the band’s logo on it not something she wanted him to see, before he came back the other way. "At least you’d never have to sleep. Real life energizer bunny." She grinned and hopped off the bed. If Zane needed to do something, sitting around playing video games wasn’t going to help. She rather liked the idea of quitting while she was ahead, anyway.
Taking her gun off the nightstand, she moved past him. "C’mon, Bunny," she said, a new nickname which she was sure no guy would appreciate. "You can pace while you teach me to shoot straight."
"I really hate losing." Male, female. It didn't matter: losing was losing, and he strived always to be the best--a lesson that had been practically beaten into him since childhood. Zane turned back the other way, considering dropping down to the floor for some push-ups or sit-ups, something to lose the feeling that he'd just downed three cups of coffee. "I just keep going and going," he told Paige after her energizer bunny comment, taking another swig of whiskey and pausing in his step to see if the feeling had left him. It hadn't.
"Bunny...?" he grumbled as she moved past him. Target practice tonight with monsters crawling all over? "I can think of a few other ways to burn energy without leaving the room," he suggested, moving to follow her. "My spare gun is in my room."
"I’m sure you can, Rabbit," Paige replied, changing the connotation with the word, when he suggested staying in the room. "But I still need to learn to shoot and you still have to prove you’re not all talk." A grin formed on her lips. While Paige tended to be easier than most girls, the guy still had to work a little. All she had gotten from Zane was dirty suggestions and a mention of him wanting to shag a girl who had been Paige’s best friend.
Once they were out in the hall, she locked her door and followed Zane to his room. It was good to know which room was his for future reference, she thought, so there wasn’t a repeat of earlier that night. "Where‘d you learn to shoot?" she asked, leaning a shoulder against the doorframe to his room.
Zane shook his head at the nickname and led the way to his own door, turning the key in the lock and pushing inside. He flipped the light switch out of habit instead of necessity. The room was in perfect order: the bed made, the towels folded, the whole place looking like no one had set foot in it since the last time housekeeping had come by. "I learned to shoot somewhere," he told her, with no intentions of making his training general knowledge. She'd seen him shoot so she knew that he was capable, that was the whole point.
He made his way to the dresser at the front of the room, pulling open the top drawer. Inside were most of the items he had gathered from the convenience store along with his spare gun and ammunition. He grabbed his Glock and a magazine, looking them over briefly before he loaded the weapon and put it in the waistband of his jeans. He looked over to Paige. "Do you have a location in mind for this little lesson?"
"Got it. No personal questions," Paige said, pealing off the doorframe to take a couple of steps into the room. It was just enough to keep from looking like she was hanging back in the hallway, though it still gave her a clear view of everything. It didn't look like he'd even stayed in the room so Paige thought nothing of its immaculate state. As for the nickname, since he didn't seem to be taking it the same light-hearted way it was meant, she decided to drop it.
There was a pause as glanced back into the hallway. She seemed to be thinking of a location, yet that wasn't what was going through her mind. There was simply something about the way he’d called it a little lesson that bothered her. When she looked back she shook her head gently. "No, I guess I don’t." The streets were too dangerous in the dark and inside was out of the question unless they wanted to give everyone heart failure. "I’m sorry if I offended you with the nickname," she said then, her eyes fixed on his blue. "And I didn’t mean to actually discharge the gun; I was just thinking stance and grip." She’d left her room so they could find a large place for him to pace around. The rooms, compared to the rooms Paige usually stayed in, were incredibly tiny. "Unless you think its necessary… then I guess we could… break onto the roof?" Her eyebrows lifted in question.
"I'm not that easily offended." He'd been called worse things, though being referred to as 'rabbit' or 'bunny' would do little for his ego. Zane paused by his nightstand as he passed, the handcuffs there drawing his eyes. For a moment, he considered shoving them in a drawer, though that would draw attention to them which was the point of stuffing them away. Then his gaze moved to the picture of his sister that lay next to them, one he had kept on his person for almost ten years but had removed from his pocket that morning so it wouldn't smell like the dead bodies he'd been moving. In the image the blonde girl grinned, her hands gesturing toward a large, detailed sandcastle, one they had built together on their last family vacation. Zane's brows furrowed; it was so hard to believe she was probably dead. Since the thought had occurred to him earlier that day, he'd been trying to forget it.
Zane picked up the photo, shoved it in his pocket, and then opened the nightstand drawer and pushed the handcuffs inside for good measure. "Let's see if we can get onto the roof," he said, finally turning his attention back to Paige. "You should at least fire a couple of shots." He stooped to pick up an empty beer bottle and water bottle from out of the trash and then moved toward the door, brushing past Paige, his eyes on hers as he did, and back into the hallway.
As Zane paused by his nightstand, Paige’s eyes followed his gaze. The metal reflecting the overhead light caught her attention first, the realization of what they were causing an amused smirk to touch her lips. Though the smirk faltered when she caught a better glimpse of the photo. A young blonde girl? Paige’s mind didn’t leap to sister or realise it was an old photo; it leaped to daughter. Her stomach tightened uncomfortably and, by the time Zane turned, Paige had set her gaze back to the hallway. She didn’t want him to catch her expression, which was filled with sorrow. She’d probably lost her whole family and all her friends, like everyone else, but losing a child, even when Paige couldn’t imagine that pain herself, had always seemed so much more tragic. If not just for the young life lost, for the lives they left behind.
When Zane moved past her, she looked up, able to keep the sorrow from her face but unable to force a smile. It wasn’t anything like she usually would have reacted to him brushing past her. Paige followed him into the hallway as she pushed the thoughts away. With everything that had happened over the last few days, she was immensely thankful she‘d long ago learned to compartmentalize. "Okay," she said about the rooftop. It was a little exciting to think she’d get to fire the gun without having the need to fire it.
"I’m going to borrow your cuffs one day," she told him as they reached the lifts, a smirk on her lips and a mischievous look in her eyes. She didn’t offer any elaboration on that statement, however. "Does that mean you were studying to be a cop?" Paige couldn’t think of another reason anyone would have them and it fit with his ability to shoot a gun. Unless he’d been under arrest. Although she doubted, if that were true, the cuffs would have been in tact and anyone in that situation would have kept them. "Or were you moonlighting as a cop stripper?" Her gaze ran its way down his body and back up, looking him over, before her eyebrow raised and she smiled at him. So much for no personal questions, she thought after the words had left her mouth.
Zane raised a brow and glanced sideways at Paige. She'd seen the handcuffs then. "You're not borrowing them without me," he told her as the elevator doors opened and greeted them with a ding. He stepped on and waited for Paige to do the same before pressing the button to head to the roof. "I was training to be a cop," he admitted once the doors had closed. He wanted to keep the medical degree to himself more than the cop status, mostly because there was no law now and being an almost-officer mattered far less than being an almost-doctor.
Once the elevator had stopped, Zane stepped out onto the roof, the air cooler twelve stories up than the stifled, rotting air they lived in below. He scanned the area, looking for a good place to set-up and finally chose the far side, setting the bottles he'd brought onto the ledge there. He turned back to Paige, holding his hand out. "Let me see your gun." He needed to make sure it wasn't loaded before they started. "You've never fired a gun before?"
"I wouldn't dream of borrowing them without you." Paige grinned devilishly. "That's half the fun." Despite the fact they were going out to the roof so she could learn to shoot and, in turn, not get killed by monsters, it was really nice to have a regular conversation. The sort that could have happened a week or two ago and not had anyone looking at her strangely for talk of dead and monsters. "Why didn't you want me to know you were a cop?" she asked then, curious. She had good reasons for not wanting him to know what she'd done for a living, and she figured he had to have reasons too. The cop and the murderer; Paige smirked to herself.
Paige took a deeper breath of the air as they crossed the rooftop. The light breeze danced through her hair, cooling her skin and making her feel more awake than she had since earlier that evening. She looked upward, the black blanket of night brightly scattered with stars. More stars than Paige had seen since she was in the tour bus between towns. It made sense when there were no lights in the city anymore. Which gave her an idea. "We could see other survivors at night," she said, leaning out over the edge. "If we got the right vantage point and secured it for a night. I bet those things cant flick light switches."
She looked over her shoulder as he asked about her gun. It was held out for him to take, but she didn’t move any closer. It was fully loaded. "Yeah. I emptied it into a monster." There was a pause. "At a monster." Only one bullet had hit.
"And you couldn't have told me this back in my room?" He watched her face a moment, eying her grin. He wasn't quite sure whether to read it as a joke or her being proud of her own upfront suggestion. Since they were already headed upstairs he supposed it didn't really matter right now. "I don't wish to tell anyone I'm a cop," he continued, "because it's not any of their business and because I'm not actually a cop. I only got about a year into my training."
Zane joined Paige at the ledge, staring out into the--darkened?--city. It looked gray, pale to him. He couldn't see shining points of light but neither did it feel dark or like night at all, just more like he'd been suddenly transported into an old movie. "We could see them if they thought to signal anyone," he pointed out. "But if they're smart, and not desperate, they won't. Just as we shouldn't so we don't bring anything uninvited our way." Monster or human.
He took her gun and pulled out the magazine and then tried to fire it once to ensure it was empty. He handed it back to her and took out his own gun. "First thing is stance," he told her, stepping up next to her to demonstrate. "Feet shoulder width apart and the foot opposite your dominate hand forward." He stepped out of his own stance and turned to Paige. "Next is your grip. You need to get it tight and make sure your thumb is out of the way of any moving parts." He slowly placed his own gun in his left hand to show her. "Show me."
"One day," Paige repeated. The truth of it was, she could enjoy flirting all she liked but she wasn't so interested in any sort of relationship. Everything that had happened in the last three days aside, it'd only been a short while since she'd gotten out of a serious relationship. One that had torn her soul more than she cared to admit. "Your secret is safe with me." If he wanted to be a private person, he could. He could have also lied about everything he'd ever done in his entire life and no one would have known any better. Paige only wished she'd had that luxury.
She looked over to him when he mentioned people signalling, brows furrowed lightly. "You might want to tell the people in the hotel that; everyone's has lights on in their rooms." Which was all she'd meant: if they looked out over the city and saw lights on anywhere, they'd know there were more survivors. It had been the middle of the day when everyone had died, after all. Zane was most likely right about it attracting unwanted things, of course, but Paige still thought the monsters were mindless and crazed beasts. Unless they were attracted to light, like moths, she doubted they'd come knocking.
Paige mimicked his stance almost perfectly. The grip was much the same to the way Amberlee had shown her in the gun shop, but it was something she hadn't been able to remember on her own. "Like that?" she asked when she thought she had it.
"It won't matter until the electricity goes out." Looking out on the city he could still see lights here and there, not as many as there had once been but just the ones that had been left on once the inhabitants of a place had died. Somewhere thousands, if not millions, of television sets and radios flickered nothing but empty static.
Zane examined Paige's stance and then turned her hand in his briefly to check her grip. "Exactly." He stepped up behind her. "Now, straighten your elbow and aim at one of the bottles. Use your dominant eye--close the other if you need to--and align your sights. And when you're ready put your finger on the trigger." He bent slightly, trying to get down to her level as though he was aiming as well. "Deep breath in, half breath out and gentle squeeze," he instructed near her ear. "If you jerk on the trigger at all, you'll miss your shot."
Paige did as she was instructed, straightening her elbow and taking aim at the bottles. She doubted anyone took a deep breath when they were under pressure; it hadn’t looked like Zane had even had time to take a breath before he’s started firing on the monster in the car park. Still her chest rose and fell with the breath, and a second later, the gun clicked as the trigger was pulled back. Hand-eye coordination wasn’t something she had any difficulty with. But firing a gun was new, and she clicked the trigger once more to ensure she could do it smoothly without it catching under her finger. She turned her head to one side to look at him, waiting for his next instruction.
"Good." Zane turned his head to look at her a moment and then stood to his full height again. He dug her magazine out of his pocket and took her gun, loading it. "This time the gun will kick," he told her as he stepped up close behind her, their bodies aligned. He wrapped his hand around hers on the gun, his finger over hers, even if it wasn't his dominant hand. He certainly hadn't learned to shoot from someone doing the same to him but, since an opportunity presented itself, he saw no reason not to. "I'm gonna fire with you once. Go ahead and aim at the water bottle to start." He was starting to wish he'd brought more stuff for her to practice shooting at, although he also didn't want her to waste her ammunition. It did little good to know how to shoot if she had nothing to use for her shot.
It was hard to ignore his breath on her neck as he took her hand in his. Considering she’d been doing just fine with only instructions so far, she was reasonably certain it wasn’t necessary for him to be so close. It actually reminded her a lot of how every instructor hitting on their student acted, whether they were instructing a tennis swing or how to shoot pool. A smile curled her lips, half amused, but she said nothing. Instead she set her focus on aiming the gun.
"Okay. Here goes," she said softly, turning her face slightly so she could look at him. When she turned back, she took a deep breath, half released it, and pulled the trigger. The noise was near deafening but the recoil only slight, compared to what it had been like in the gun shop, when Zane was holding her hand steady. The water bottle exploded and disappeared over the side of the building, drops scattering like rain on the already wet rooftop. Paige’s smile broadened with slight satisfaction as she once again glanced back to Zane.
"Nice shot." Even with his help to keep the gun steady she had done a good job on the aim. He released his hand on hers, putting both hands lightly on her hips as he stepped out from behind her. He moved to the ledge and pushed the glass bottle toward the center of her vision. "Now try it without me. Remember, it will kick a lot more so pull the trigger smoothly." He stepped back behind her, though not so close this time. He didn't want to distract her but to make sure he was within a safe area. He crossed his arms, his blue eyes on the beer bottle.
She lowered the gun while he moved the glass bottle. When she lifted it again, she mentally went through every step of holding the gun to how to pull the trigger. It was a slow process, yet it was probably to be expected from a beginner. Finally, ready, she looked down the barrel to line up her shot, moved the gun a fraction to the right, and pulled the trigger as smoothly as she could. The kick, while nothing more than she knew it would be, still caught her by surprise. Though, even if she’d done it perfectly, she would have missed.
Once again, Paige lined up the shot. This time she was ready and seemed to control it a lot better. Though her aim had been purposely off, just like before. She lowered the weapon and turned her chin skyward for a second. "I might need your help to line it up again," she said without looking back at him.
She'd gone from incredibly good aim to atrocious aim, and considering he'd let her aim herself the entire time he wasn't convinced it was an accident or lack of ability. "My pleasure." He stepped up behind her again, unable to keep the smirk off his face. This time he wrapped his left arm all the way around her waist and took her gun hand in his. Again he placed his fingers over hers. "I think you have better aim than you're letting on," he told her quietly, his chin over her shoulder and his mouth almost brushing her ear. He fixed his eyes on the bottle again and waited to let her take control of the shot.
Zane’s words caused Paige a grin. "I know you’re not complaining," she replied softly, adjusting her stance so she was leaning ever so slightly into him. If there was ever any doubt before there was none now: the girl was a flirt. In her line of work, she hadn’t had ample opportunities to be one with random strangers and, as it turned out, it was rather fun.
This time, when the gun went off, the bottle exploded into a thousand pieces. It was the sort of thing that would have looked grand in slow motion, yet happened so fast in real time that it was gone before she’d even confirmed she’d hit it. The safety was clicked on and she placed her hand on Zane’s one around her middle. "Thanks for teaching me this," she said before she moved to step out of his grip, turning to face him as she did. A half amused smile touched her lips; the almost cop had just taught a murderer to shoot, and he had no idea. Paige released his hand a moment after. "How are your energy levels?"
"Not at all," Zane returned, his focus on her shot interrupted by the feel of her body against his but not broken. As she hit the bottle head on, he loosened his grip on her. Perfect shot. Maybe he was a capable teacher so long as he had a capable student. Had she been bad at it, or not caught on right away, he had to wonder how long his patience would have lasted. Though the flirting didn't hurt either.
He just stared at her a moment, finding the question strange, his anxious pacing in her room long forgotten. "Better," he told her once he'd figured out what she was referring to. "Why, do you have plans for them?" He wondered how long it would be before his powers didn't seem foreign to him anymore, but instead were as common as breathing. "I suppose I should get that suitcase out of your room." It had been bad planning on his part not to just take it with him when he'd gone to get his gun. He turned and made his way back toward the elevator, pressing the down button.
"No plans," Paige replied with a shrug. "I was just going to let you know there’s a fitness center in the hotel." Because she was planning on going back to her room to either pass out or work on her unfinished song some more. And, really, it hadn’t seemed like he’d gotten that much exercise on the roof. "Unless you were faking to get out of having your ass kicked again?" she asked, eyes narrowed.
Once the lift arrived, Paige pressed the button for the fourth floor. A few moments later, she was unlocking her door for them again. She couldn’t help but feel Zane was a little hot and cold when it came to flirting, one moment there and the next all business. But it really hadn’t phased her much when she’d only been having some fun. Paige stepped aside once inside the doorway, waiting so she could lock the door once Zane had collected the case.
"As I recall I was the one winning when we left," he retorted. The information about the gym was helpful though. He'd have to take a look and see what equipment they had there. At minimum he hoped for a treadmill, since running outside was no longer an option, except for when being chased by monsters and he'd had plenty of that recently.
Zane followed Paige back into her room, their game still paused where they had left it and the contents of the case strewn over one bed. He gathered it up, stuffing it all inside, and then zipped the case closed. He made his way to her door, pausing in front of her, and looking her over. Was he really going back to his own room right now when he'd been flirting on and off with this girl all night? And when he had yet to redeem himself on the game?
He set the case down, one hand reaching out to grab the edge of the door and the other bracing against the wall by her head. He leaned into her, his eyes on hers, and swung the door shut with an audible click.